


The Lights of Gannon Lei

by Fox_the_Clever_Turnip



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Eventual Romance, Fantasy, Gay Male Character, M/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Science Fiction, Spaceships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 03:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3471998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_the_Clever_Turnip/pseuds/Fox_the_Clever_Turnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hunter is an engineer-for-hire for the criminal element until a job goes wrong and he's forced to crash-land onto an uncharted planet. Dealing with guilt and grief, he's plunged into an alien struggle to recover a magical artifact with a guild of thieves and assassins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lights of Gannon Lei

**Author's Note:**

> This is a spin-off of another story and a sort of excuse to explore Hunter's character outside of his relationship with Talmai--an alien reptile he spent 12 years with.

Chapter One

Three beeps, the beautiful sound that Hunter loved to hear. It signified success, and success meant payment—which typically meant more liquor and self-destructive nonsense. Not that he ever planned it that way, he just couldn’t seem to help himself. With that triple beep came a whir of life and light from the panel he had been working on. It was a pretty routine job; get the security down so the crew could get in, take their cargo, and go. After that initial conquest, all Hunter had to worry about doing was keeping eyes off of them and keeping the alarms quiet.

Mostly, it was waiting.

This was an easy run. In and out. No guards, just cameras and alarms. Heaving a sigh, Hunter watched his handheld with only mild interest as he waited. The men who had commissioned him this time around were some of his usuals. They called him up once or twice a month and roped him into some petty robbery. It didn’t pay as well as he would have liked, but it wasn’t as if it was much effort on his part. Plug in, press a few keys, enable override, and let his tablet do the work.

The door slid open with a  whoosh to his left and out popped a scruffy youth with his hands full, stuffing something into a satchel that hung by his hip. He flicked his gaze up to Hunter and gave a black-toothed grin.

“Got it, then?” asked Hunter, looking past the kid, through the door behind him. “Where’s Jim?”

“Comin.’ Had a problem with the glass case this thing was in,” he stated, giving a shrug and peeking into his satchel, a greedy grin spreading over his lips.

Hunter pulled his attention from the hallway beyond the door and narrowed his eyes on the youth. “What kind of problem, Andrew…?”

Andrew shrugged. “Wouldn’t break. We had to topple it.”

Hunter’s stomach churned, and he grabbed the kid by the shirt with his free hand, hauling him back toward the exit. “I told him  not to break it! It’s not made of glass! Sit your ass right here and if you move, so  fucking help me!” He set the handheld on the lip beside the panel, and bolted down the corridor, skidding around corners until he entered the safe. The building was bare and white; it reminded him of hospitals and laboratories. It was built at the top of a space station by some rich bastard who liked to hoard artifacts from old Earth. This, though, was not of Old Earth. It was an urn recovered from a crash site on an uninhabited, poorly terraformed moon. It was said to hold the ashes of a man who tried to conquer Parliament and create and Empire out of the scattered remnants of the human population, back when they first evacuated Earth. Hunter did not give a single shit who the ashes belonged to, but it seemed this collector had a thing for men who rose against the popular power. There were paintings of old conquerers leaning on the walls of the safe room; Greek and Roman leaders, Napoleon, other generals and military leaders.

And right at the center of it all was a toppled pedestal, the glass-like cover still rocking on the floor. Jim was there, perusing the artwork and artifacts, taking his time and examining each one. He didn’t look up, just kept pulling the paintings forward from their places against the wall, and leaning them back as he finished each stack. “Who’s monitoring the alarm system?” he asked flatly, only to yelp when Hunter tore him from his task, the paintings toppling forward as he was yanked back by the shoulders of his shirt. “What the hell!”

“What did I say? What clear instructions did I give you about that pedestal!” Hunter huffed, shoving him toward the toppled platform. “I said it had  sensors! ”

“I couldn’t get it open, so we knocked it over!”

Hunter shoved him again. “Bullshit! The cover was set on a pressure-sensitive surface! You tripped an alarm, you jackass!”

Jim looked down to the mess on the floor, shifting uncomfortably. “Is Drew aboard?” he asked, swallowing hard.

Hunter grabbed him by the back of his shirt and shoved him forward, keeping a hold of him as he guided him briskly back down the corridor. “You come in for one thing and you screw everything up, then take your sweet time, like you  want the feds to come down on you—on  us . I didn’t peg you for that stupid.” He let him go when they got to the docking module, and grabbed his tablet, unplugging it from the panel. No sense in being cautious with the alarm already tripped. Hunter cursed quietly, and waited for Jim to open up the ship. Andrew held the satchel tightly, looking between them nervously.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, fiddling with the brass latch on the satchel. “I thought we were pinchin’ some of those paintings. Pocket money, you said.” He nudged Jim expectantly.

“Get on the damn ship.” Hunter motioned him in, and stepped in behind him. When the door shut, he turned to find Jim finally leaping into action and bolting for the control room. Andrew still stood, gap-mouthed and confused.

No sooner did the engines whir to life and Hunter start the disengaging process, and the power went out. He cursed, and let his head knock against the panel by the door. They were screwed. A light streamed through the line of slitted windows along the ship’s central column, and Andrew ducked, throwing his back against the wall just under the windows.

“They know we’re here, Drew, get up.” He muttered, and glanced over his shoulder. “Jim! I’m going to get the power back, but I can’t get us off the dock before they cut us again! I need you to throw the throttle as soon as the engined power on!”

Andrew hugged the satchel, eyes wide. “You’ll rip the door off! Kill us all!” He hissed, as if the security team could hear him.

“You sure?” called Jim.

Hunter kept pecking at his tablet, nodding to Jim’s inquiry—until he realized he wasn’t there. It was times like this he really missed Talmai. “Yeah, I’m sure, just gun it when the console pops on!” He called back. If Talmai were here, he would have compensated for Hunter’s lack of coherence when he was in the middle of his work. It had been two years since Talmai was killed, and he was finally at a place in his life where he could deal with his day to day without chemical intervention. Still, those moments when he and Talmai created a single, perfect, working unit made him ache inside.

With a deep, steadying breath, he threw himself back at their problem, and in a split second the ship hummed to life and the lights popped on. The docking mechanism from the federal ship bumped them hard on their starboard airlock at the same moment that Jim threw the ship forward, an unholy screeching and thumping echoing through it. Drew gasped as the docking arm passed him, and scrambled on his hands and knees across the floor and hid behind a stack of crates. Hunter fought to keep his footing as he bolted to the control room, and threw himself into the navigation chair.

“Now what?” Jim shouted at him, trying to keep his hands steady on the wheel.

“What do you mean ‘now what?’” Hunter scoffed. “Get us the hell out of here! You’re a thief, this is in the job description!”

Jim cast him a shaky, uncertain glance and gave a grunt of surprise when they were fired on, the first shot rattling the ship a bit. “I’ve never been chased by the feds!” He confessed in a yelp, and swerved violently, avoiding a second shot that hadn’t come.

“Are… are you kidding?” Hunter stared at him, gaping. “Jim… shit.” He rose, and yanked Jim out of the seat, plopping him into the nav chair. “Just strap in and be quiet.” He said and took Jim’s seat, pulling the straps over his shoulders and plugging the metal prongs into the latch between his legs. He snatched the wheel and yanked it aside, dodging a shot. “Do you even know how to read these instruments?”

“W-Well… yeah, I just.. I mean, I’ve never…”

“Never mind, just… shut up.” Hunter was hardly the best pilot, but right now he was the only one with a level head. Spending most of his life with Kadri aboard  Amity Dawn had really done a number on his nerves. There was a time, he would have been Andrew, huddled in a corner, fighting to breathe, shaking and probably near vomiting. Kadri was a hard ass and never did like to keep out of trouble. As her resident mechanic and tech geek, and with Talmai at his side, Hunter got dragged into every shady thing she felt like dipping her hand in. Not that he hated it…. It was exciting and he and Talmai got to see things that he would never have seen otherwise. It was a good life.

A blip on the radar stole his attention, and a light bulb burst on in his head. “Andrew, strap in!” he shouted, but did not wait for a response—or even confirmation that the kid was secure. There was no time. That little blip got closer and closer, and finally Hunter spotted it in the windscreen. The Gate. If he could Gate hop a bit, maybe he could throw them off. But that meant a lot of travel, and they didn’t have a ton of fuel. Still it was a better plan than none at all.

The Gate’s coordinates prompt popped up on the screen to his right, and he quickly chose another Gate from the list that this one was capable of putting them out to. There were five that this one would reach, and he poked one at random.

“What are you doing?” Jim squealed, reaching over to still his hands, but the Gate had already burst open and began to pull them in.

Hunter held his breath—he hated Gating. A strong tingle exploded all over his skin, the hair on his arms standing on end, and the ship shuddered. But only for a moment. They surged through the other side with a loud crack inside the ship, though they were far from where they began. Without missing a beat, Hunter threw the ship into a spin and darted back to the Gate. Five more Gates popped up on the screen to his right, the one they had come from included, though the rest were different from the first list. His eyes settled on the last Gate.

“Sector 925. Ever been there?” He asked, swallowing hard. In a moment, the feds would figure out where they’d gone and be through that Gate.

“I’ve never heard of it,” said Jim, voice trembling. “Fuck, Hunter, you’re not gonna—”

“Yup.”

“We don’t know where it lets out!”

Hunter only shrugged, selected Sector 925, and pushed the throttle forward. Again, his skin tingled and burned and his hair stood on end before they burst out the other side—into Sector 925. It just looked like space to him. As long as he could put some distance between their ship and the feds, he was happy. Pulling the throttle back, he scanned the windscreen and the radar for any conceivable place they could hide out for just a bit. Though his hunt didn’t last long. A flash came from behind them, and the fed ship shot out of the Gate at full speed. Hunter’s stomach sank, and he tried to speed up, but took a hit right off the bat. The ship shuddered and groaned, but he didn’t stop. He kept moving. They couldn’t chase them forever, right? Eventually someone would run out of fuel or, at the very least, give up. More likely, Jim’s hunk of scrap would be fired at until it was riddled with holes and drifting. They would come in, take what was stolen, recover the bodies, and head back to their base, victorious.

Another hit—the alarm buzzed violently as the air began to rush backward, pulling Hunter’s breath with it. To his surprise, Jim sprang to action and locked them down, isolating the bridge from the rest of the ship and sealing it with the press of a few buttons. The man had managed to steady himself enough to start using his console and the tools they had available while Hunter focused on flying.

“Andrew—” Hunter ventured.

“He’s dead!” Jim snapped and, with shaking hands, pointed at a small dot on their console. “It’s a planet. Small one. Already marked as safe for humans. Must be why there’s a Gate here. Get there and maybe we can make a stand. They’re going to shoot us out of the sky if we don’t. I don’t want to die in space, Hunter.”

With a glance over, Hunter nodded curtly and veered to the left, pushing the throttle to the limit. It wasn’t far. They could make it. Jim held his breath and the arms of his seat with a white-knuckled grip as the ship creaked and shook. The planet was in view, three moons circling it almost imperceptibly, and there was a straight shot through them to the planet itself. Another shot rattled the ship, the blinking red lights flickering before continuing to blink. Thankfully, with the back half of the ship contained, that insufferable, pulsating buzz alarm was silenced.

Hunter remembered Andrew. Poor kid. He swallowed his guilt and kept moving. Another two shots came, and he managed, just barely, to dodge them both as they hurtled forward. As violent and jarring as it was, there was no sweeter feeling, Hunter decided, than crashing into the atmosphere of the planet—their saving grace. He hoped.

“It’s not gonna hold. It’s gonna fall apart,” Jim said shakily, having to raise his voice over the rattle and clanking of the ship’s hull and moving parts. “We’re gonna crash, Hunter!”

Hunter grimaced. “Probably,” he muttered, trying to hold the wheel steady as he pulled the throttle back and dropped their landing gear. When he dropped the drag flaps, the far left flap ripped clean off the ship, sending them down in a spin. Jim’s string of cursing and the horrific sounds the ship made as it descended toward the planet’s surface were enough to unnerve Hunter. It was getting impossible to keep his head. The tree line rushed up at them, and, before Hunter could react, they smashed into the trees, leaving a trail of snapped branches and tree trunks, like match sticks sticking up from the upturned dirt. In a haze, Hunter lifted his head, his vision skewed and fog-like. There was nothing but dirt in the view screen. Slowly, he unbuckled the straps between his legs, and immediately thunked onto the console with a grunt.

“Jim—” he glanced over. Jim hung half out of his harness, limp and bleeding, the left side of his head caved in with blood smears on the upper console in front of it. Hunter covered his face for a moment and sighed, sliding off the console and climbing up the floor. The ship was at a forty-five degree angle, sticking out of the dirt and supported out the back by a mess of broken trees. The red light had stopped blinking, so Hunter ventured to the door that led to the cargo hold. Keying in the password, he hauled himself through the door with a wince, his bruised body protesting with every crawl upward. He managed to get himself through the door, and balance his feet on either side of the door frame. As expected, the cargo hold was a disaster, and a whole corner of the ship had been torn open; Andrew’s gnarled and battered corpse was hung up on the twisted metal, half-charred and ripped up like a rag doll.

The partition was necessary if they wanted to survive, but Hunter couldn’t help that little pang of guilt. It wasn’t fair that a kid, even one like Andrew, got tangled up in this sort of thing. Sentiment could not win over practicality, though. That federal ship was coming, maybe more than one, and he had to get himself the hell out of this wreck. It was starting to smoke, and the smell of dirt and burnt greenery became strong. Crawling up through the back, he squirmed past the ragged, burnt body half-blocking the hole, and hauled himself out. The hull was cooling, but still too hot to touch, leaving Hunter to toss himself out the hole and into a pile of sticks and leaves with a yelp of pain. Panting, he pulled himself to his feet and scrambled through the destroyed foliage. He could hear the fed ship, and it was not far off. If there was any cover to be had, he had to find it now.

The federal ship touched down a short distance away, just outside of the patch of trees that Jim’s ship had taken out, and Hunter felt a bit of relief when the engines powered off. Any more deafening noise and he as going to lose his mind. As it was, he felt himself vibrating right to the core until it finally settled. The leaves were thick on the floor of the woods, and he scrambled and tripped through them to get as far from the crash site as possible. His boots got hung up on roots and rocks, until he finally toppled down an embankment and laid back against it, filthy and panting.

“James Foley. Come into the open, hands in the air,” the voice over the speaker made Hunter’s stomach churn, and he stayed clung to the side of the embankment, desperately hoping they didn’t sweep the area. “James Foley. Come into the open, hands in the air. If you do not comply, we will have to use force.”

Jim was dead, they could force all they wanted. Hunter hoped they ‘used force’ soon so they could leave—but Jim was in the nav chair and Andrew was obviously sucked out the back. They would be hunting for a pilot. A new panic rose in Hunter, and he ducked his head, his mind racing and his heart lodged in his throat. What the hell was he going to do? Crawling up the embankment, he peeked across the broken trees and foliage, straining to see what was happening, what sort of ‘force’ the feds were using. He narrowed his eyes.

It wasn’t a federal ship. It looked official, but it lacked the seal of the Federal Collective that was always emblazoned on the side of official fed ships. Who then? Mercenaries? Thieves better and more organized than Jim was capable of? He kept watching over the lip of the embankment, and, as expected, the ones who shot them down took to the ruined ship. One of them worked on the small fires that had broken out with a handheld extinguisher, two others dragged Andrew out and dropped him down to the ground. As easily as if they had opened a door, they slid through the tear in the bottom corner of the ship and down into the cargo bay. It was silent for a long time, but Hunter waited.

“Got it!” A voice called, crawling up out of the hole and hopping down, the satchel in his arms. Hunter saw him opening it, pulling out the urn, and brandishing it. Another voice scolded him unintelligibly and the one with the urn tucked it back into the satchel.

“There’s another one out here. Someone had to be flying this thing,” said another, coming out of the hole and hopping to the ground. “Should we comb the area?”

“Why?” asked the first, tearing the satchel out of the other’s hands. “He’s probably dead or dying, his ship is shit, and we’ve got the goods. Let’s go cash in.”

Hunter heaved a sigh and stayed put, watching them board their vessel and head off into the sky. It was a dirty trick: mercs posing as feds. Even by criminal standards. Or maybe Hunter had high hopes for people. That was disappointing. At least they were leaving, but at what cost? It was near dusk when they were finally out of sight, and Hunter had grown stiff and sore lying on the slope of the embankment. Tugging himself up, he groaned a little and stretched, working his muscles out slowly. The temperature was dropping with the sun, and he had no idea what he was going to do. He was hardly a survivalist.

Talmai would have known. Two years had not eased that pain much, especially during the times when Talmai really would have swatted him upside the head and shown him how it was done. Those times were frequent in their relationship, though Hunter hadn’t been bitter. It was endearing, having Talmai there to make sure he wasn’t a complete wreck. All those years together, Talmai had given him strength through his anxiety, pulled him together through his fears and incongruities. He was invaluable. More importantly, Hunter had loved him like he had never loved anyone before. The concept of love had been a bit foreign before he met Talmai—but he was letting his mind wander.

Picking his way across the leafy ground and over broken branches, Hunter made his way to the wreckage. Andrew’s body lay draped across a stripped tree trunk, so he leaned down and lifted the youth up, grimacing at how ragged and limp he was. Where the other ship had set down there was a clean stretch of blue-black grass, and that was where he set Andrew. After Andrew, he clambered up into the ship, and released Jim from his restraints—Jim was much larger than Andrew, though not quite as large as Hunter himself—only to struggle upward with him out the cargo hold.

“Sorry, Jim,” he murmured, and did his best to gently drop him to the ground below. The thump the corpse made had Hunter gagging. How could he do this to his friends? What the hell had he done with his life that this was where he found himself? Well… maybe ‘friends’ was a strong word for what they were, but still….

He hopped down, and half-carried, half-dragged Jim to a place beside Andrew. He was sore, tired, and had yet to assess his own injuries, but he could not leave them lying out here in the open. And he sure as hell couldn’t justify leaving them in the ship to rot. Pulling himself back up into the ship, groaning a little at the strain on his body, Hunter fished out their tools, found the spade, and set off to bury the dead.


End file.
